I have done better with momentum trading. Trading S/R can be difficult. I’m still working on it…
I don’t think I’m trading for the rest of the week. The market isn’t really trending on the D1 so much. Well, I don’t see any entries. If there are no entries, therr’s nothing to trade.
An experienced trader said it is good to watch from the sidelines.
A few more trades closed. Now, I’m just gonna wait until I see some trades worth getting into.
Tomorrow, or maybe on the weekend I’ll review my losses. Not now.
Feeling a bit burned out. I need to recharge.
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I’ve realised I’m losing some discipline. I used to trade for 45 minutes, then relax or watch a movie for 15 minutes.
But instead, I started randomly checking my phone, checking messages, and going on youtube.
Youtube short videos are designed to keep you there. It immediately feeds you the next new positive stimulation.
There’s a strategy in that. I’ve been falling for it. Time to get back on track.
I understand more clearly the meaning of “sitting on the sidelines”.
Right now, things are choppy. Either I would have gotten in last week, or I should have stayed out.
I have some pairs that are doing ok, and others hit the stop.
My gains from the last two weeks, I gave back to the market.
I have to keep a discriminating eye. I’ve kept my risk low. I’m proud of myself for that part, though. That part has showed progress.
However, there are probably some trades I should have just sat out.
David Paul said it’s not the losing trades that destroy you—it’s the winning trades that make you think you can’t lose.
My ego doesn’t want to admit that happened. I had done well for three weeks in a row.
Then, I had a string of losses. If I put my ego to the side…and you looked at that progess on paper, it would look exactly like what David Paul described.
So, I HAVE to admit that’s me. I did it.
I am not special. I am not the exception to the rule. Losing can happen to me. Vulnerability can happen to me. Inflated ego can happen to me. Arrogance can happen to me. Carelessness can happen to me. Never succeeding in forex can happen to me. Never reaching my goals can happen to me.
Never learning my mistakes and repeating them over and over and over can happen to me. I am not special.
There’s no one stopping me but me. The market is giving me opportunites, and all I have to do is take advantage of it.
Being in a rush doesn’t necessarily mean trading more. It means not missing any opportunities. That’s what it means to me.
But at the same time, I have to be willing not to trade. If there are 10 opportunities, I’m taking them all. But they have to match my strategy. Some trades will be .05% risk. Some will be 0.038% or even less.
I have to be willing to say no. If there are ONLY two trades that fit my strategy, so be it. In order to not give my profits back to the market I MUST be willing to not trade.
The key is not the trades that I take, but the trades I DON’T take. Saying no to some trades is what will protect my profits.
I have to get better at knowing when to say no.
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Hi @dushimes
What situation causes you most frustration:
- missing out on a trade that would have won
- Taking a trade that ends up losing
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- Taking a trade that ends up losing
To be honest, I was thinking about what the correct answer would be.
But I’m just going to be honest. A losing trade means losing money. It’s a part of the game though. But when I have several of them, I have to think about what happened—“why did I lose this trade?”
If I miss a winning trade. It still bothers me, but at least I didn’t lose any money.
If I lose just a few trades, it’s ok. But if I read all of them wrong, then I need to adjust my paradigm.
I think the same way.
A losing trade is irreversible. It is lost. The money is gone.
But missing a trade that would have won just means waiting for the next trade - and there always is a next trade.
Therein lies the line between a “gambling” instinct and an “investor” mentality. Do I seriously want to make money or do I just enjoy trading as long as I win a few.
So what situation causes you most satisfaction:
- Entering a trade that wins
- Deliberately rejecting a trade that would have lost.
Think about it from a long term perspective…
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“You only have to do very few things right in your life so long as you don’t do too many things wrong.”
Warren Buffett
Something worth pondering on! 
Have a good weekend 
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- Deliberately rejecting a trade that would have lost.
This reflects a skill. I really believe it’s important to know which trades to walk away from. I’ve had the habit of finding bad set ups and trying to figure out the best way to trade it.
Could you believe it? I used to try to figure out the best way to trade a losing trade. Trades that I shouldn’t have even taken in the first place.
As far as a winning trade, a win could be random. But perceiving a trade as a non-ideal set up is skill, for sure. Self control, as well.
@SovoS How about you? Ever experience anything like that?
A problem I’m having is that I want to be more productive. When I have a day off I think, “oh man, I’m gonna be so productive today!!”
And in the end, I do about 2 hours or less of work. On days like that I feel really frustrated.
I was thinking today, “where does all my time go?”
On those days, simply running a few errands, making some phone calls, preparing meals, eating, etc…that’s 6 hours.
No wonder I have no time. Only on the days I don’t have to leave the house, I can get work done.
So, it may seem like a simple thing, but just today I realised that I don’t have as much time as I think. Doing other things take time.
Just because I go to work for 8 hours, it doesn’t mean I should expect 8 hours of straight studying from myself on my days off.
I would like to raise my expectations of myself, but first I must understand reality.
I have a few days off from work. I started making a list of all the studying and reading I want to do each day. My list came up to 8 hours.
That doesn’t include time to eat, time to go to the store for food, phone calls, errands I have to run…
I have have to be more realistic, and then try to improve.
Tonight, I’m looking forward to a full night’s rest.
Tomorrow, I’ll be more organized.
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The past month or so I’ve gotten out of the habit of my daily study routine, fallen behind my reading and have not been very consistent doing my daily FX checklist. Also haven’t updated my learning journal (different from trading journal) for 2 months. Saw this video on Linda Raschke’s channel and it resonated quite a lot with my current dilemma. Perhaps it can help with yours?
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The thing that has always frustrated me most in trading is analysing and entering multiple positions in multiple instruments; only to find that the profits on some are eroded, or even exceeded, by losses on the others. Even though, in theory, one can balance the exposure risks, this only helps to ensure that the losses are equal and opposite to the wins!
I hate this situation so much that I only ever trade one instrument at a time, depending on which markets I feel are most active. I prefer to become so totally absorbed in that one instrument that I often “know” what I will see when I next return to the screens.
Being disciplined in seeing and avoiding weak set-ups is a difficult skill for any self-directed sole-trader such as us retail traders. And yet it is possibly the single most effective tool in growing our accounts.
It often takes a long time for the prey to appear, but when it does the reward is swift!
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I understand what you mean. It’s the idea of a sniper vs a Terminator.
A terminator comes in with big guns and tons of ammunition. He has one target yet destroys the whole building.
Meanwhile, a sniper waits, waits, waits. Then ‘boom’. One shot.
I’m working my way towards the sniper approach.
However it requires:
-Patience
-The ability to distinguish between a good set up and a bad one
That’s when you gotta be willing to not trade. I guess it’s being a bit selfish. It’s like telling the market, “I want these trading conditions, or I’m not trading.”
How do you decide which one is most active?
There’s volatility in so many pairs!
That is why I only follow 3 or 4 instruments. Mainly index (SP500), commodities (WTI/Gold), EURUSD, EURGBP. I am not sure whether to classify BTCUSD as a commodity or a currency but I don’t trade it actively anyway as I don’t feel comfortable with it when there is no underlying “product”.
In deciding whether an instrument is active at any time i first look at a number of things:
Fundamentals: what events are approaching in the calendar, i.e. economic data (NFP, US retail sales, inflation data, etc). policy events (Central bank meetings, etc). Markets are often quiet or twitchy beforehand.
PA stuff: general candle sizes on various time frames, trend lines, etc. Suggests level of general interest
Indicators: converging/diverging MA’s, suggests when markets start to consolidate or break out of a range.
I constantly follow the three time frames: Daily, 4-hour and 1-hour. Then when a set-up occurs (on the hourly) I take a look at the 15 min chart to see whether there is generally much activity in terms of the recent candle sizes. If there is, then it is a viable trade, if not, then give it another hour…
But this is just my way, I am certainly not suggesting it is the right way or the only way…
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What is the “underlying product” in the GBPUSB pair that makes it different than the BTCUSD pair?
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Both GBP and USD are official currencies of major countries and are overseen by regulatory authorities including two of the most important central banks in the world. Both currencies are related to real volumes in concrete trade, business and investment transactions. Both currencies are the subject of governmental monetary and fiscal policies.
This means that the value of both currencies can be evaluated in terms of actual fundamental data issued regularly by reliable sources such as interest rates, employment, inflation rates, trade data and so on. Then there are policy statements and directives as well as an inherent assumption of governmental and central bank intervention if markets get seriously out of control.
Naturally, trying to place a value on such currencies based on fundamental data may be an illusory occupation but at least the information is there and the markets will reach a balance point between all the market participants.
Bitcoin has none of that, unless you are going to include El Salvador and other business transactions that often wouldn’t stand the light of day. Its “value” is a vacuum and is reached purely between the opposing forces of buying and selling at any one time - an activity which is highly prone to automated, precipitous, self-fulfilling, actions and reactions, and often leading to a domino effect result.
Naturally, virtually any free market, whether it is a currency or a commodity or a stock market, is vulnerable to sudden changes such as a “black swan” event, and we have certainly seen such events! But I simply feel the likelihood of such an event is far greater and likely to go much farther with Bitcoin than with instruments based on more tangible factors.
This is just a personal view and why I don’t feel comfortable taking exposure in it other than with an occasional speculative day trade. Others may, and certainly will, see things differently, and that is ok.
(PS. But maybe Bitcoin is not as risky as driving over the Army and Navy roundabout flyover… )
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This part I understand. I feel like the fundamentals of crypto don’t support the actual price. Same as the housing bubble in 2009. The housing prices were going up, but there were no fundamentals to support the price. Prices kept going up and up, and boom. It just collapsed on itself.
I don’t know all the details, and I know it’s more complicated than that. I may even be seeing it wrong, but I see crypto as the same thing for the moment. Going up, going up, but why? Did demand go up? Is it all just market manipulation? Investors selling positions? 30% drops/increases are insane. How can anyone rely on a currency that fluctuates like that?
One day I get paid 100, the next day I’m getting paid 70.
However, crypto is still in it’s beginning stages. Regardless, it’ll be interesting to see how it unfolds. There may be a lot of “I told you so” going around soon.
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I just reviewed about 13 of my last trades. Basically, what happened in each one is that I didn’t observe the terrain.
I didn’t anticipate what COULD happen. I would like to backtest a bit more and do a little more analysis.
Hi @SovoS
Thank you for the detailed explanation. I agree with your logic, in that major currencies represent real world transactions, and that BTC differs from these because it is not backed by any real world large country.
BTC has been referred to as a currency, meaning that it is a proxy for money, just like the “Pound Sterling” was a proxy for silver - one pound of silver, or 454 grams worth approximately £238 today.
I am not disagreeing with you here. I am contemplating whether or not I should think of BTC in terms of a currency or as money. I have concluded it is the latter, and that has answered a decision I took late 2020 to denominate our crypto currency amounts held in BTC, and not in USD or GBP. Before the USD was taken off the full gold standard in 1933 by FDR, and far worse later in 1971 by Nixon when it was removed completely from the value of gold, yes the USD and the GBP were proxies for money. Now they are true currencies. They are called fiat currencies because there is no direct backing by money - gold or otherwise.
BTC, on the other hand, has a limited supply of 21m units, is not controlled by any central entity, and cannot ever be “inflated” by producing more of it out of thin air.
I accepted, back in May 2020 when I decided to take a small but significant interest in BTC, that a black swan event (like all G20 nations “banning its existence”), may render my interest in crypto worthless. But the reward / risk ratio I saw as a potential 100X was just too tempting to stay on the sidelines. I think that was the day I thought I understood BTC. In December 2020 when I decided to “think about our future wealth in BTC, not in GBP” I deem to be the day that I really did understand BTC.
You see, since 1988 when I met my wife, I have always had this “thing” about gold, and why between 1971 and 1980 its price moved from $40 an ounce to $800 an ounce. Then around 2010 I was fortunate to learn of a gentleman called Mike Maloney - a silver bug who has created a rather excellent series of videos on the history of money. From that point onwards, I tracked out wealth in terms of “ounces of gold” not fiat.
All that happened at the end of 2020 is that I decided to substitute the ounces of gold as a standard for quantity of BTC. Since BTC contributes less than 10% of our wealth invested, it is not going to break the bank. The fact that it cost us less than 3% of our wealth to participate back in 2020 is a great reason to respect it as a potential future yardstick against which to measure relative net worth. It will probably take more than a decade for me to completely move my brain from gold to BTC, but if in the meantime it ever does become worth north of a million dollars, it will be a no brainer. Meantime, the journey is more interesting than the final outcome. And my trading strategy is based on “quantity of BTC held”, which may be a unique outlook on life (or not).
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